


Traces of Ginger and Green

by MagalaBee



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagalaBee/pseuds/MagalaBee
Summary: Sylvain never realized he could fit the entire world in his arms until he first held his daughter.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 126





	Traces of Ginger and Green

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for my Sylvgrid shipping friends, and inspired by the great Sylvgrid art of https://twitter.com/vestariares. Please, check out this fantastic artist and leave some Kudos & Comments if you liked this little one shot!

Sylvain had been told repeatedly that fathers weren’t supposed to be in the birthing room. It was how things were done, apparently. Why, he had no clue, and it was a tradition that Sylvain had been happy to disregard completely, no matter how the nurses protested his presence. 

Hours of his wife’s pain and pushing and worry, but the reward… Oh, the reward was everything.

Sylvain sighed, smiling as he gently pet back wispy tufts of ginger hair. Ingrid’s head was on his shoulder, her hair pinned back and damp. He had given her a bath himself after the labor, and settled her gently into their bed, surrounded by pillows. While she didn’t need to be coddled, he did so anyway.

“She’s so beautiful,” Sylvain murmured, looking at their daughter. She was tiny and pink, her face scrunched up a bit as she slept in her swaddling blankets. He loved the pale orange locks that covered her velvety little head. He loved that he didn’t wake her up by playing with it more. 

No matter how callused and rough his grip had become during the war, it wasn’t too rough to hold his baby.

“She is,” Ingrid agreed, her eyes heavy and smile soft. “She looks like you.”

“Think so?”

“All that hair,” Ingrid chuckled. “Gautier ginger. She’s clearly your daughter.”

He liked that. He liked that she looked like him. “No offense, Ing, but I’ve never seen a girl as beautiful as this.”

Ingrid turned her head and kissed his cheek. Her lips were a bit chapped. They always were. It was one of the countless little things about her that he adored. Sylvain would never stop loving those lips. “None taken.”

As hard as it was to look away from his daughter, Sylvain canted his gaze to his wife. She was looking at him too, with tired green eyes. 

“I hope she has your eyes,” Sylvain murmured. Their daughter wouldn’t open her eyes for another day or two, but when they peaked open for the first time, he hoped they would be green. Bright and determined and fierce, just like her mother.

Ingrid’s cheeks flushed a bit, but she still had the energy to reach up a hand and gently smack his arm. “Quit it,” she mumbled, “You’re embarrassing me.”

“In front of who?” Sylvain laughed.

“Our daughter.”

That made him look back down at the baby in his arms. “Mmm…” he hummed. “Yeah… Our daughter.”

Two words had never felt so important. So heavy. Their daughter… Sylvain was holding the whole world in his rough, callused hands. 

“Daphne,” he whispered, a name they had agreed upon. “Do you know how perfect you are?”

The baby in his arms gurgled in her sleep, her tiny little lips pouting together as she scrunched up her face. His heart clenched in his chest, filling up with so much emotion that it hurt. Gods help him, he never knew something could hurt like this. Hurt so much but in such a good way.

“Thank you,” Sylvain whispered. “Thank you, Ingrid…”

“Why are you thanking me?” she asked, her eyes drifting back to Daphne too. 

“Because you did all the hard work,” he chuckled. “And… I don’t know. Thank you for loving me.  _ Really _ loving me. I don’t know what my life would be without you. Without her.”

Ingrid’s arms slipped around his, hugging against him. Her head nestled deeper into the crook of his neck. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” Ingrid mumbled. “You saved me more times than I care to count, Syl.”

“I guess we just have to thank each other then,” he smirked, once again petting his fingertip over Daphne’s soft wisps of orange hair. “Or we can spend the rest of our lives thanking her.”

“I like that,” Ingrid agreed. “Make sure she feels all the love that… that we never really got from our parents.”

Her grip tightened around his arm and Sylvain turned his head to kiss Ingrid’s golden hair. They both had fractured childhoods, both of them looked at like objects by their fathers. An instrument for inheritance. A thing to be sold to the highest bidder. Their daughter would be none of that. She’d be loved as she was.

“She’ll just be Daphne Gautier,” he declared with a smirk, taking inspiration from Felix. “And no one else.”


End file.
